The Dallas Safari Club (DSC) revoked its support this week for President Joe Biden’s controversial nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) after learning about her past involvement with the environmental extremist group Earth First.
DSC, which has an international presence in wildlife preservation and hunting, has taken back its endorsement of nominee Tracy Stone-Manning after discovering she was a member of Earth First! 30 years ago.
The conservation group was a signatory on a letter dated June 1 and addressed to Energy and Natural Resources Committee chair Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and ranking member Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) praising Stone-Manning as a “well-respected, collaborative, and knowledgeable leader throughout the conservation community.”
Breitbart News has obtained a copy of a new letter addressed to the Senate committee leaders, however, stating, “Since that time, DSC has become aware of information that has made it impossible at this time to continue to back this nominee for the Director of the BLM.”
Read the letter below:
DSC Executive Director Corey Mason, who wrote the letter, cited Stone-Manning’s past association with Earth First! — noting the group “has a history of sabotage, property destruction and creating dangerous work environments for loggers and sawmill operators” — as the reason for DSC shifting its stance.
“There is no doubt that this group performed violent acts, including ‘tree-spiking,’ as part of their platform for getting attention in America,” Mason continued.
In 1989, Stone-Manning mailed a brash letter to the U.S. Forest Service on behalf of John P. Blount, an individual in her “circle of friends,” alerting federal authorities that trees in Idaho’s Clearwater National Forest that were scheduled to be cut down had been sabotaged with metal spikes to prevent them from being harvested. Tree spiking, as this form of sabotage is called, is both a crime and, according to the FBI’s definition, an act of ecoterrorism as it can cause injury or even death to loggers or millworkers processing the spiked trees.
After the Forest Service received the letter, Stone-Manning and six other individuals in Missoula were the target of a 1989 grand jury investigation for which they were subpoenaed and required to submit fingerprints and hair samples. However, the 1989 grand jury did not uncover enough evidence to charge Blount or anyone else with the crime. The case was not solved until Blount’s ex-girlfriend reported him to authorities two years later, and in doing so, also named Stone-Manning as the person who mailed the letter for him. In exchange for immunity, Stone-Manning testified in a 1993 trial against Blount, who was convicted for the tree spiking crime and sentenced to 17 months in prison.
DSC pulling its support for Stone-Manning comes after revelations surfaced about Stone-Manning waiting until 1993 to testify that she sent Blount’s letter and after she reported inaccuracies about the tree spiking case on her recent Senate committee hearing questionnaire for her nomination.
Mason wrote that his organization “believes that it is imperative that someone with such an important position over the Nation’s public lands be trustworthy and honest beyond reproach. Although her involvement with Earth First was many years ago, participating in an organization that perpetuated violence against fellow Americans is simply unacceptable.”
His letter concluded, “As such, DSC urges a full investigation into Ms. Tracy Stone-Manning’s background before considering her for the next Director of the BLM.”
Barrasso, for his part, has vehemently rejected Stone-Manning’s nomination, telling Breitbart News on Wednesday there is “no way” she should be responsible for directing the BLM’s 65 million acres of forest. Manchin, however, has been silent on the issue, as have most of his Democrat colleagues.
Because the Senate is split 50–50 by party, opposition to Stone-Manning from all 50 Republicans and just one Democrat would derail her confirmation if it comes up for a full Senate vote.
Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com.
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